Planning to succeed

I was sitting here in my lab this morning and reflecting on all the things I want to do in it. The thing about getting things done is they don’t get done unless you actually take the time to do them. A book will happily sit unopened on your bookshelf for your entire life if you don’t take the time at some point to pick it up and read it.

In this light I thought perhaps I might stand more of a chance of actually completing some of my projects if I put some structure around getting them done. To that end I have one specific activity to do for each day of the week:

  • circuit day (make a Maxitronix circuit or similar)
  • programming day (write some code, pick a project, there are lots)
  • old book day (review and document an old book)
  • Xbox day (recap an Xbox, or work on an otherwise broken one)
  • writing day (write something, e.g. work on my book, a long form blog post, etc)
  • new book day (read and document a new book)
  • holiday! (watch a movie! play a game!)

On circuit day and Xbox day I will make a video of the activity and publish on In The Lab With Jay Jay. The outputs from the other activities are not video but a lot of that will end up on the web somewhere too.

The sub-pattern is:

  • Video
  • Writing
  • Reading

I repeat that twice in one week and then give myself a day off.

Traditionally I’m very bad when it comes to having structure in my life, so I can only hope that this attempt to introduce some structure actually works out… wish me luck!

TOWOT Industrial Tweezers

I purchased some high-precision tweezers which arrived today. I got these ones: TOWOT Industrial Tweezers (SA11-15) from Amazon for AUD$58.95. Haven’t used them in anger yet but they look pretty good. I got these because I tried working with my cheapo tweezers which I already had, and they weren’t up to the job. So hopefully I have better luck with these ones.

Op amp tester

I was watching How To TEST OP AMPS Using A Multimeter vs Op-Amp Tester Project Single Dual and I learned about this Operational Amplifier OP AMP Tester For Single Dual OPAMP TL071 TL072 TL081 TL082 Single/Dual Op Amp Test Board.

I have to cool it on the spending for a little while, but I’ve made a note of this on my shopping list.

Thermal imager FTW

I was just poking about with my new thermal imagers and I found one of my power bricks was warm, while the one next to it, on the right, was not. Turned out the one on the right wasn’t plugged in properly! It was supposed to be powering a USB hub, but the hub was bus powered, not mains powered, and I couldn’t tell. I mean, all of the lights were on, and the power brick was plugged in, so I hadn’t suspected anything. If I hadn’t made this discovery with my thermal camera I would probably never have learned that my USB hub was unpowered. I could very well have run into problems with devices plugged into it being under powered, and I would never have known why.

Unboxing #3: Unboxing of UNI-T UTi260B Thermal Imager with Macro Lens | In The Lab With Jay Jay

This post is part of my video blog and you can find more information about this video on this show’s homepage which is here.

You can support this channel on Patreon: patreon.com/JohnElliotV

In this video I unbox my new UNI-T UTi260B thermal imager with macro lens and compare it with my Noyafa NF-521 thermal imager.

I made a few mistakes with the production of this video, sorry about that. I made a mess of the side branding, I will have that fixed in future. And I managed to get my toes on camera. The height of professionalism!

In this video I refer to my lab equipment documentation. Particularly I mention the Jackcat Mini Cutter electric scissors.

Note: in the video I’m not sure what “ROI” means, but it turns out it means “region of interest”. The region of interest is a box in the middle of the display, and some settings apply to this area.

Thanks very much for watching! And please remember to hit like and subscribe!


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Yum Cha Heavy Duty Stainless Steel Wire BrushThis is an image of the product.notes

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Philips QT4022

This evening I was working on a battery replacement for a Philips QT4022 hair trimmer for my friend. They don’t seem to make this model any more, it was hard to find useful info about them. I made some notes over here. In the end I accidentally released the magic smoke, but at least I got some practice using my soldering iron and my microscope (this evening I learned how to take photos with my microscope and transfer them to my computer, haven’t done that before).

I did start off making a video about this, but it all went very badly, so I’m not gonna be publishing that one. :P

I learned a few lessons:

  1. take photos of the circuit board before you take to it with a soldering iron. This is so that if you damage the circuit board or the silk screen you can still read the component markings on the photo even if you damage the board.
  2. use the max current and max voltage settings on the power supply and don’t exceed sensible values for those. (200mA for DC motor is a sensible limit, 6A is not.)
  3. if you’re dealing with a circuit that has batteries soldered in, and you’re attempting to desolder the batteries, you need to be careful the solder doesn’t melt and create a short circuit, because it can, and it will.

My soldering skills are pretty poor at the moment. What I need is lots of practice. I’m not sure what the best tips or the best temperatures are yet. I accidentally lifted some SMD components because I used too much heat too close to them.

RIP Philips trimmer.